Thursday (Feb. 13) we had another blizzard and snow day from school, which made us very ready to go Friday after school. We made it as far as Aunt Betsy's in NJ, arriving around 10 PM. She had had a worse winter than us - could barely find her sidewalk, which she said she spent a whole day chipping out of the ice-banks piled waist-high there. We had a really nice (if too short) visit with her, but left a bit later than planned (11 AM) because Helen decided to throw up several times Saturday morning. Betsy was a really good sport about it, and I must confess I was glad it hadn't happened all over Helen's carseat, which is nearly impossible to clean while on the road.
As it turned out, we scooted out just ahead of yet another snowstorm, leaving another several inches of snow in the north. We drove hard all day, other than a stop in VA for a bathroom that turned into a shopping trip for new shoes. (John has had these good sneakers since the fall - but they have laces. He insisted when we bought them that he would learn to tie them. He didn't, and wouldn't wear them. So Jeremy found him some no-tie laces with a pull-tab. Except they turned out to be too big, and dragged on the ground all the time. At this particular fateful stop, John finally tripped on them, and smacked his cheek badly on a concrete curb. We were at a strip mall anyway, so...we actually found some velcro shoes that he loves (they have a puma on them because that is the brand, but John seems to just think they are actual puma shoes, and that is what he calls them). While Jeremy and John did that, I took James next door to the Old Navy for a pair of shorts, since he announced the day before we left that none of last summer's shorts still fit him. Thus, it turned out to be our most efficient rest stop by far - in 30 minutes we used the bathroom (where Helen got sick all over the floor - but again, NOT in the car!), bought shoes, bought shorts, threw in socks for Helen and John for good measure, and I got the best cup of tea of the whole trip (from Panera, where the clerk actually seemed cheerful to have me inform her that for my purchase of less than $3, I had left her a horrible mess in the restroom).
Our dinner stop was going to be just gas and a drive-through, but as we piled out of the van, John got sick all over the parking lot (again, NOT in the car! Woo-hoo!) So, we added a trip into the Food Lion for saltines and Sprite and were on our way. We finally found a clean but inexpensive hotel in Fayetteville, NC, and stopped about 10 PM. Despite my being awake at 6 AM Sunday, we somehow didn't get on the road until 9:30. We did have a very substantial breakfast at the hotel, though. Given that both John and Helen seemed to be making up for a day without much food, and James was eating as usual, and that all 6 of us had a shower (after all the illness, we wanted that), I think we paid less than $10 for the beds. The rest covered our hot water and "complimentary" breakfast.
By early afternoon, we were approaching Savannah, GA and the kids needed a break. Fortuitously, the exit we chose for fast-food happened to have an air-force museum where the kids ran around for a half-hour, looking at the planes around the parking lot. Then, we all enjoyed weather finally warm enough that we ate our Burger King at the OUTSIDE tables for lunch.
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| Letting off some steam - out of the car for a few minutes. |
We crossed into Florida in the late afternoon and enjoyed the free orange juice at the Welcome Center on I-95. However, we still had 4 hours of driving ahead of us. I would complain about how stinking large Florida is, but it turned out that the weather got significantly even nicer as we went, so I concede it was worth the last push. We finally arrived at Uncle Jim and Aunt Barb's around 9 or 10 PM, where they proceeded to spoil us all with chocolate chip cookies before bed.
All in all, not bad for traveling 1400 miles in 2 days and an evening.
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